Chapter 12
Pearse Street train station at rush hour wasn’t a place for quiet contemplation: the pigeons fluttering in the roof above, the commuters staring at their phones, the shafts of early-summer evening sunlight making spotlights on the platform. Kitty stood, thinking about work, about Dave… and whether it was possible that one could be washed up at thirty-two.
‘Kitty! Kitty!’ She looked behind to see her aunt, Annie, barrelling towards her. Annie was the colour of a freshly oiled teak cabinet, the smell of fake tan in the air. Her fingernails were bright pink. Her hair highlighted. ‘Just getting my bits done,’ she said. ‘We’re off to Ibiza in the morning.’ She reached up and threw her arms around Kitty. ‘We’re so excited. We’re heading straight to the bar in the airport for 8a.m., few little Proseccos to get us going…’ The train pulled into the platform and they waited their turn, while Annie talked about what they had planned to do while there – ‘tanning by day, drinking by night’ – and what she still needed to sort out before departure. ‘I couldn’t find my passport earlier,’ she said. ‘Tore the flat apart. High and low. In the end, had to phone your mother to sort it out. Was sobbing down the phone and who else but your mam to sort out my problems…?’
They took their seats on the train, Kitty beside the window. One of the posters that she had designed was on the wall at the end of the carriage about calling out antisocial behaviour on public transport. It was from last year, and she looked at it wondering if it too was missing something.
Annie was still talking. ‘She phoned the passport office for me and they organised an emergency one for me…’ Annie groped around in her capacious bag. ‘It’s here, somewhere. Just picked it up. The man was so nice. Now, where is it?’ She groped around again. ‘It was here just a moment… aggh.’ She looked up at Kitty. ‘It’s gone. I’ve lost it!’
‘Let me look…’ Kitty took the bag, slipping her hand straight into the inside pocket, and retrieved the passport. ‘Voila!’
Annie was all smiles again and flutters as she clasped her bag and passport to her chest. ‘Cinderella is going to the ball! What would I do without you two? I couldn’t face a life without balls and parties. Ibiza is going to be a ball.’ She beamed at Kitty as the train pulled into Sandycove, and they both stood up, moving towards the doors. ‘Now, by the way, your mother didn’t get that promotion… whatever it was she was going for, chief thingamajig?’
‘She didn’t?’ asked Kitty, confused. Surely she was a shoo-in?
‘I was only half-listening,’ said Annie, ‘so didn’t get all the details. I was running late for my bedazzling sessions and was so stressed about the passport. You know I was thinking of getting my toes done. Do you think diamanté on all the nails or just one or two… I don’t want to overdo it…’
But Kitty was thinking of her mother. ‘What did she say? Was she upset?’
‘Who?’
‘Mum!’
‘Oh, you know your mother… never gets upset about anything!’
She was right, Catherine didn’t get upset about anything. Kitty couldn’t remember the last time her mother was anything other than her cool, calm self. And yet, this was something she had worked for, something she wanted… something she deserved.
They walked to the top of the steps of the station, and through the ticket barrier and stood for a moment outside, ready to go their separate ways.
‘I’m going to go over and see her…’ began Kitty, as Annie delved into her bag. ‘See if she’s all right.’
‘Who?’ said Annie, her head still inside her capacious bag. ‘My purse… It’s gone… ah! No! It’s here! Thank God. Panic over.’ She looked up, fixing Kitty with one of her little smiles. ‘I don’t suppose you could lend me some money? Just a little bit… tide me over…’ She smiled even more winsomely. ‘I’ll pay you back! You know me… always good for a debt. Don’t want to fall out with my favourite niece…’
Annie had never paid her back, but Kitty was thinking of her mum. She could pop over now and then home and then to the five-aside.
‘Kitty?’ Annie gave her a poke in the arm. ‘Please? I’m just running low and I need a few spends for the old holliers, you know how it is…’
‘Yes, yes, of course…’ How could she say no to Annie, her mother’s only sister? ‘How much?’
‘One hundred euros? Two? Two fifty would be better, obviously.’ Annie put her head on one side. ‘Or more. Only if you could spare it. Three hundred, final call. Or… well, whatever you can spare.’
Kitty felt herself being herded by Annie towards the bank machine on the outside wall of the station.
‘Promise I’ll pay you back…’ Annie was saying. ‘It’s just there’s been a bit of a cash-flow logjam… you know how it is and you know me… clueless I am with money. It comes in and it goes out… I never hold on to it for long enough…’
Kitty’s fingers hovered over the keys and then inputted €300. Annie was family. And she was her favourite aunt, her favourite relative, and if you couldn’t lend some of your money, then there was something wrong with you. ‘Here you go…’ She handed over a sheaf of crisp €50 notes as Annie’s eyes gleamed.
‘You are the best niece anyone could have.’ She beamed at Kitty. ‘The best and the sweetest and the world’s most amazing niece. I will remember you in my will!’ She gave a wink, grabbed the notes and vaguely kissed the air near Kitty’s face. ‘Now, bye-bye, sweetie! Must dash and fling a few bikinis into a bag! See you in a few days! I’ll need another holiday to recover!’ And she was gone.
Kitty made her way to her mother’s house, more concerned about Catherine at that moment than the fact that she would probably never see that €300 ever again, but to her relief when she opened the door, her mother was looking her normal, composed self.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘How lovely to see you…’ She smiled at Kitty, hugging her. ‘How was work?’
‘Fine…’ Kitty stepped into the house, following her mother through the hall and into the kitchen. ‘I just met Annie…’
Catherine turned around. ‘She’s all excited about her trip…’
‘She told me about your promotion… or lack of it… is it true?’
‘Oh, that.’ Catherine stopped in the hall.
‘What happened?’
‘Well…’ Catherine shrugged. ‘Someone else is going to be CEO. It was stupid of me to presume it might be me.’
Kitty was silent, trying to think what to do and to say. Her mother was more upset than she had at first assumed, and they walked into the kitchen, Catherine sitting at the table.
‘I just thought that the right person always gets the job,’ her mother was saying, as Kitty filled the kettle. ‘You work hard and you are rewarded.’ She smiled at Kitty. ‘I had forgotten about the old boys’ club and the powers of a game of golf.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Carry on,’ said Catherine. ‘Isn’t that what we do? Never give up?’
‘Even when you feel like it…?’
‘Especially when you feel like it.’ Catherine nodded, as though the moment of upset had passed. ‘Anyway, enough about me…’ She smiled at Kitty. ‘How’s everything with you?’
‘Fine,’ Kitty replied.
‘Have you heard from…?’ Catherine drifted away.
‘No…’
Catherine opened her mouth as though to say something and then stopped. ‘Well…’ she said. ‘I don’t… I mean… it’s…’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Kitty.
‘How is everything at Mulligan O’Leary? Everything going well?’
Kitty wasn’t ready to tell her mother that the team had lost their groove and that she felt sometimes as though she had suddenly forgotten how to swim, mid-length of a pool, and chlorinated water and panic were starting to fill her lungs.
‘It’s all fine,’ she said, firmly.
‘At least one of us is working hard and seeing the results,’ said Catherine. And then she laughed. ‘Annie was in earlier, looking for spending money. She’s always running out at the end of the month.’
Kitty looked up. ‘How much did you give her?’
‘Five hundred euros.’ Catherine shrugged. ‘She’s having enough fun for the two of us.’
‘And why can’t you have fun?’ said Kitty. ‘Why shouldn’t you be off on holiday?’ She immediately felt irritated with Annie, taking advantage of Catherine who was stuck at home, after not receiving the promotion which should have been hers. And, worse, Annie had duped them both for money and they all knew she wouldn’t ever pay them back, she never did.
Catherine shrugged. ‘Holidays mean so much more to her than they do to me. I’ve never been good at switching off.’
Life, thought Kitty, wasn’t fair. For the first time, she understood what Shazza had been trying to say. Some people had all the fun, and others not very much of it at all. It was time for some fun before life slipped by, unnoticed. And where better to try out this new theory than at the five-a-side football?